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YOKOSUKA, JAPAN – When Yokosuka Middle School teacher Sarah Overton learned of National History Day’s Researching Silent Heroes project, she was intrigued.
“I love these ‘real world’ professional development opportunities,” she said. “As a history teacher, I thought it was an interesting opportunity to be the student, and to really think about how learning impacts each of us in different ways.”
Overton was one of 55 teachers selected for the Researching Silent Heroes webinar series this year, which also included three other DoDEA educators. The program, conducted in collaboration with the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), provides educators with hands-on training to research and create profiles for a Silent Hero – an individual who served in the United States military. The men and women researched for this webinar series died during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War and are buried or memorialized in an American military cemetery cared for by the ABMC.
“My grandfather fought in World War II,” she said. “As I was growing up, it was something he never talked about, but later in his life he wrote detailed memoirs about his years fighting in the Pacific. I noticed that he only ever mentioned the loss of a fellow soldier once, and it was clear that this loss affected him greatly.”
When Overton’s mentor assigned by the National History Day program asked her to choose a servicemember from the Manila American Cemetery, she remembered her grandfather’s stories – and that he had spent a significant amount of time in the Philippines with the 6th Ranger Battalion.
“I sorted the list of burial plots by unit, and found that there was one member of the 6th Rangers buried there,” Overton recalled. “I selected this Ranger, PFC Darwin Zufall, and as I spent the next few months digging into his life and his military records, I become certain that he was, in fact, the soldier whose loss had affected my grandfather so significantly. By memorializing PFC Zufall for this Silent Heroes program, I was also honoring the life and sacrifice of my beloved grandfather’s friend.”
As she completed her research this Spring, her classes were covering World War II in the Pacific, and she was able to weave in stories about her grandfather and PFC Zufall’s contribution to the Americans’ success at the Battle of Leyte.
“I always tell my middle school students that history is just a collection of stories about people, and remembering that human connection makes history feel more relevant… Every single one of my students got that question correct on their unit test,” she said.
Overton said she enjoyed participating in the project – especially the opportunity to dig through old military records.
“There are so many stories scrawled in fading handwriting, stuffed in dusty folders, and I thought it was such a privilege to be able to put the pieces together in this way,” Overton said.
Read Overton’s profile on PFC Darwin Clair Zufall: https://nhdsilentheroes.org/profiles/darwin-clair-zufall/
